Ezzat Ahmadi - Tabriz Technical and Vocational University, Tabriz, Iran

Housing has been a major challenge for the rising population of countries during last decades and the provision of affordable standard housing for low and middle-income households has always been at the forefront of sustainable development strategies and plans, especially in developing countries.Despite existence of many sustainable principles of residential architecture in ancient Iran, diverse housing problems and issues has originated in urban areas due to consequences of the process of uncontrolled urbanization and industrialization, which has brought in many immigrants from rural areas to urban centers. To solve these problems, the government intervention has been considered fundamental, especially in the form of introducing various housing strategies, policies and regulations, but the degree of their success is still open to question and must be studied with higher scrutiny. It is obvious that in most cases, ancient principles of sustainability which have stood the test of time have been ignored in strategies and plans. In this paper, the intention is to introduce and analyze diverse obstacles of achieving sustainability in housing strategies, policies and regulations in Iran

Planning, Housing, Sustainability, Urbanization